a) Field of the Invention
UHTS is the abbreviation for xe2x80x9cUltra High Throughput Screeningxe2x80x9d and refers to a process in the pharmaceutical industry for screening specimens at a very high throughput (more than 100,000 specimens per day). A UHTS system is one comprising various components (such as incubators, pipetters, readers) and a transport system by which microtiter plates (MTPs) are transported between the various components. Different process steps are carried out in the components.
A UHTS system is usually divided into various work stations dedicated to different tasks and comprising components suited to these tasks.
In order to configure a work station comprising different components, it is necessary to define exactly the space to be occupied by each component. Further, it is desirable to keep the surface area requirement of a work station as small as possible. For this reason, only a relatively small surface area is available for each component.
The xe2x80x9csmall incubatorxe2x80x9d described in the following is intended to be used in a UHTS system. Its object is the interim storage of small to medium-sized quantities of microtiter plates under well-defined climatic conditions. Buffer stations of this kind are frequently required when a work station contains components with a low MTP throughput or when repeated measurements must be carried out on a microtiter plate at determined time intervals.
b) Description of the Related Art
Incubators are already known from EP 281547, EP 293782, EP 165172, DE 29613557. However, these devices cannot be integrated in a work station because they take up too large a surface area. The arrangement of a handling system in the interior of the climatic chamber, known from EP 165172, is technically complicated.
The object of the invention is to provide a small automatic incubator which is adapted to the space circumstances of a work station, i.e., in particular, it has a small base area. This small base area is achieved through the special MTP storage magazine and the MTP output unit.
In accordance with the invention, a climatic cabinet for receiving objects, preferably microtiter plates, contains a preferably rotatable object receptacle in the interior. The object receptacle is vertically adjustable for changing its position relative to the input and output door.